Durham rallies to win over Orland in ninth inning

Durham >> Coaches and players alike on the Durham High baseball team saw opportunities to cash in runs missed time and again on Wednesday afternoon.

Thomas Ratana didn't let the last one get away.

Ratana banged a walk-off RBI single with one out in the bottom of the ninth to drive home Carson Neely, giving the Trojans a 4-3 win in extra innings over the Trojans of Orland at Pop Owings Field.

In driving in Durham's final run, Ratana, who came on in relief of Hayden Southam on the pitcher's mound, made himself a winner in the process.

"It's just exhilarating," Ratana said. "I was so pumped. It was all in my hands to win the game and I came up clutch."

Ratana went 2 for 5 with a pair of RBIs, and also turned in three solid innings in relief. Southam went six innings, yielding just two runs despite battling control issues as he walked six. Orland's first run came on a wild pitch in the first inning, in fact. But he struck out seven, retired everyone else on ground balls and wriggled out of several jams, and was in line to win until Orland (6-7) rallied in the seventh inning to tie it up on Devan Barley's sacrifice fly and a game-tying wild pitch.

In the ninth, Neely reached on an infield hit, advanced to third on Damon Young's ground ball, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on Ratana's single over Garrett Ferreira at shortstop on a 2-2 pitch from James Wiseman.

"We're a late-blooming team, a last-inning, comeback kind of team," Ratana said "We need to score some runs earlier but it's nice to pull through still."

Young looked to have hit the game-winner in the bottom of the sixth, a two-run double that broke up a 1-1 tie. He split the outfielders in the left-center field gap and brought home Brycen Buck and Jake Wiley, an inning after the hosting Trojans had tied it up on Ratana's RBI fielder's choice grounder. Plus, there was some controversy in the bottom of the fourth — Durham (8-3) should have had at least one more run to work with, but the bases were left loaded when Henry Hamor's soft grounder to second was fielded by Ferreira and shoveled to Mateo Martinez at second base. It clearly was late, as Wiley was touching the bag well before the ball got there, but the base umpire ruled Wiley out and Durham had to settle for nothing.

"You have to pretend those guys aren't even out there," Durham coach Davis Van Arsdale said. "You want to put the game out of reach. We had our opportunities — the score should have been 7-1 in my opinion — but when you don't produce at the plate, you leave it up to the umpires and you take a chance."

Some of that offensive frustration was due to Orland starter Kyle Byker, who fought through command problems of his own. He walked five in four innings, yet gave up just one earned run on two hits while striking out three. Plus, he and Wiseman were victimized by six Orland errors; none of Wiseman's three runs allowed were earned.

So, while Durham got them on and got them over, the third step of the process didn't come so easily.

"We're always looking to play a complete baseball game. We preach a very fundamental approach every day in practice to get guys in," Van Arsdale said. "We had our opportunities, and finally we cashed in."